Biology Newsletter #9

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 9: week commencing 8 June 2020

Caterpillar caution Following on from Issue 8 where we suggested that you might like to bring up your own butterfly (being careful not to pick a hairy caterpillar) one of our avid readers has pointed out a particular species that you must be careful of. The oak processionary moth, Thaumetopoea processionea, is a species of moth whose caterpillars are found on oak trees (as the name suggests). These caterpillars have been spotted in the Borehamwood and Elstree areas and are a risk to human health. Please do not touch them. Find out more about this fascinating species here: Woodland Trust

Garden visitors

Wild strawberries

Hopefully one of the good things that has come out of being in lockdown is that you have taken more notice of the world around you and started to notice the changes of the seasons. I for one have paid particular attention to the flowers and plants in the garden as they have awoken from dormancy following the winter, and also noticed all of the animals that visit my garden throughout the day. Mrs Wolfson sent me this: ‘in the last few weeks in my suburban garden we have had regular visits of a “Goldcrest” which is a tiny bird I never knew previously existed, and also from a family of Woodpeckers – where the Mummy woodpecker has been feeding her 2 fluffy baby woodpeckers – much to our delight!!’

Most of our agricultural crop plants were domesticated and then artificially selected in the one of the eight centres of crop domestication, including China, India, Indonesia/Philippines, Asia Minor, Ethiopia, Central America, South America and the Andes.

However, there is one species of plant in the UK which has been domesticated to form a crop plant. The wild strawberry is flowering now, it is commonly found in grassland often on poor infertile soil. Compared to the cultivated strawberry it has tiny fruits.

We’d love to hear about what you have noticed (photos would be great!).

Please send them to me at Randall_r@habsboys.org.uk

The wild strawberry is the host plant for the grizzled skipper butterfly.

A goldcrest

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 9: week commencing 8 June 2020

App of the week: It’s all about the ‘shrooms!

Phone apps have transformed identification of species in the field and they avoid the need to carry lots of heavy and expensive guide books. Not many biologists can identify mushrooms and toadstools. There are 15,000 species in the UK and many more in mainland Europe. With an app you can have a good chance of identifying many fungi. Most fungi are visible in the autumn but some will be around at other times of the year. This one was found last week and identified with the Shroomify app.

Just a word of warning; many fungi are very poisonous and lots of people are poisoned when they think they have gathered edible mushrooms but have collected a similar looking but deadly species. It is never worth taking the chance. Do not eat the mushrooms that you might find.

A conifer mazegill fungus, Gloeophyllym separium

Year 8 breadmaking Year 8 have been learning about microbiology in Biology since half-term. Part of their work was looking at how yeast can be used to bake bread. Here are some of the results.

Looks absolutely delicious…well done Year 8!

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 9: week commencing 8 June 2020

Birds in literature by Mr Plotkin Writers have always seen birds as a convenient representative of the natural world, and therefore some sort of elemental force beyond the full understanding of humans.

Some of my favourite pieces of literature feature birds in this role: in 1984, one of the greatest dystopian novels of all time, Winston Smith hears a bird singing its heart out, and finds some hope that the man-made dystopia in which he lives will one day be beaten by natural forces; he finds that he stops worrying, and begins to feel emotions again: It was as though it were a kind of liquid stuff that poured all over him and got mixed up with the sunlight that filtered through the leaves. He stopped thinking and merely felt.

Birds are connected to deeper feelings than the usual human world: similarly (and in a much less good piece of writing) Percy Bysshe Shelley, wrote that the skylark must imagine “Things more true and deep / Than we mortals dream.” Its song, he says, is so pure that it must show a deeper understanding of the world than a human could possibly have.

One of my absolute favourite poets is Ted Hughes – and he was obsessed with birds. In ‘Hawk Roosting’, he takes us inside the mind of a hawk resting high up in the trees. The hawk surveys his kingdom, and says: It took the whole of Creation To produce my foot, my each feather: Now I hold Creation in my foot…

Nothing has changed since I began.

My eye has permitted no change.

I am going to keep things like this.

This is a bird who has become God, watching over his creation. Not all of Ted Hughes’ birds feel so in control, though. He invented a figure called Crow in a series of amazing poems: Crow is a trickster and a force for chaos – but still elemental, beyond the human world:

To hatch a crow, a black rainbow Bent in emptiness over emptiness But flying

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 9: week commencing 8 June 2020

Birds in literature by Mr Plotkin I adore that idea of a “black rainbow”, somehow both “in” and “over” emptiness: part of the chaos, but also somehow above it.

Birds are given ominous roles like this surprisingly often. In Macbeth, before Macbeth and his wife murder the king (spoiler alert! Sorry!), Banquo tells us that birds love roosting in Macbeth’s castle. After the murder, though, Lamentings heard i' th' air, strange screams of death, …The obscure bird clamored the livelong night.

“The obscure bird” is an owl. Can you understand why? Think about the root of “obscure”.

The most ominous birds of all, though, are The Birds. Daphne Du Maurier’s short story (turned into a film by Alfred Hitchcock) sees millions of birds attack and kill the entire population of England! Sounds ridiculous, but you forget about that when reading the story.

It’s a cracker.

Nat went back into the kitchen, followed by his wife. Johnny was playing quietly on the floor. Only Jill looked anxious.

“I can hear the birds,” she said. “Listen, Dad.” Nat listened. Muffled sounds came from the windows, from the door. Wings brushing the surface, sliding, scraping, seeking a way of entry. The sound of many bodies, pressed together, shuffling on the sills. Now and again came a thud, a crash, as some bird dived and fell. “Some of them will kill themselves that way,” he thought, “but not enough. Never enough.”

“All right,” he said aloud. “I’ve got boards over the windows, Jill. The birds can’t get in.”

He went and examined all the windows. His work had been thorough. Every gap was closed. He would make extra certain, however. He found wedges, pieces of old tin, strips of wood and metal, and fastened them at the sides to reinforce the boards.

His hammering helped to deafen the sound of the birds, the shuffling, the tapping, and more ominous—he did not want his wife or the children to hear it—the splinter of cracked glass.

Biology Department Newsletter Issue 9: week commencing 8 June 2020